Prof. Bruce Hindmarsh, from Regent College, will be giving a talk on February 18 from 3:30-5:00pm on “Evangelicals and the Rise of Natural Ethics.” Here’s a description of Prof. Hindmarsh’s talk:

Can you be good without God? It was in the 18th century that ethics began to separate from religion. Moral philosophy was in many ways looking for an Isaac Newton of the moral sciences, and there were many who thought that human nature and its problems and opportunities could be fully described on an empirical basis, rather than from the point of view of divine revelation. On these matters, the early evangelicals were more at odds with their culture. It seemed to them that God’s revealed law was psychologically penetrating and ethically comprehensive. Its diagnosis of the human condition was devastating, and one’s only hope was to trust in a divine Saviour. They spoke therefore of the “spirituality and extent of the law” as a doctrine to awaken men and women to their true spiritual condition. This lecture will look at their view of human nature against the Enlightenment background.

Bruce Hindmarsh teaches on the history of Christian spirituality at Regent College (Vancouver, BC) and an internationally recognized scholar on the history of early British evangelicalism. Among his many articles and books, his most recent, The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2018) received Christianity Today’s Book of the Year Award in the category of History/Biography.

For more on Prof. Hindmarsh, and to register for the event, click here.